This paper examines the trends in agricultural wages in India from 1964-65 to 1999-2000, using data from Agricultural Wages in India and Rural Labour Enquiry, after dealing with the limitations of the AWI data. The trends show that there was a slowdown in the rate of growth of real daily wages of male and female agricultural labourers in more than half of the districts in the sample in the 1990s. Earlier, there was a striking rise in the growth of daily real earnings across all states between 1983 and 1987-88. Second, there was a rising trend in the variations in real wages across districts in the 1990s. Third, the differences between the average wages of male and female agricultural labourers have widened over the years. Fourth, the daily wages of male agricultural labourers exceeded the minimum wage levels in most states, while those of women were below the minimum in most states.

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